All in Good Faith
by kkann
Summary: Trust is earned, not given. / Hawkeye-Black Widow partnership origin story with a few comic book characters thrown in. Also include the events leading up to and occurring in Budapest along with some gradual Clintasha.


**A/N: **And so after months of preparation and plotting and research I'm finally bringing you that Clintasha story that I've wanted to do since forever. That said, I'm more of a Pepperony girl myself and having really read any Clintasha stories, so we'll see how this goes.  
—pre-during-post Budapest story. With some Clintasha and some _very gradual_ Clintasha at that. To go along with that, however, this story is also a combination of movie & comic-verse, if only in the sense that a few [hopefully] recognizable comic book characters will be brought in. Admittedly, the ones I don't know so much about might not exactly be spot-on and some story-lines have been altered in an effort to realistically tie them all together. Not too much has really been changed. And I needed Clint Barton/Hawkeye to be a bit of a sarcastic smart-ass.  
So this should be kind of exciting.  
And there are also hints of 'MockingBird,' as I believe it's called. I don't really know. I'm just here.  
[Don't judge, okay? _I tried._]  
For what it's worth, I hope this works. [and will presumably be updated once again after I finally finish _Strawberries & Shawarma_ ahaha. This first chapter here will also probably be the longest, as far as I know]

**[1/?]**

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all in good faith

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ch. 1: the theogony

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"You're kidding me," was the first thing Clint Barton said, plopping himself down in the briefing room and sprawling himself across his seat as best he could. Not bothering to stifle a yawn and the disgruntled mask he wore, he slumped back against the headrest as the only thing his tired mind could focus on was how long he'd been going without sleep and how pointless this current discussion was.

His superior, Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division—they really did need to work on that mouthful of a name—Agent Phil Coulson returned the annoyed look he was receiving with one that was just as professionally indifferent, watching with subtle bemusement as the incredulity spread across Agent Barton's face. He managed to withhold a chuckle.

"No, I'm not kidding," he repeated for the third time, it having been the continual response to the man's initial outburst. His stance hardly wavered as Clint let out a groan and leaned back in his seat, squeezing his tired eyes shut to the tune of Phil sighing and trying to keep one of the blood vessels in his neck from rupturing. He distracted himself by reorganizing the few folders in his hands and casting a quick glance behind him toward the set of screens he planned on utilizing during the briefing.

"For the last time, it was a _joke_," the sarcastic, younger man said with a huff, jamming his face into his hands as if kneading his forehead could expel his exhaustion.

Agent Phil Coulson leveled his gaze with the unruly operative before him and left his expression blank.

"Be that as it may, Agent Quartermain is still in the medical wing."

"Oops," came the muffled reply between calloused palms.

Coulson let out an exasperated breath, his shoulders slumping just so. "Agent Barton—"

"What do you want me to do, send him flowers?" Clint cut in, lurching forward in his seat, hands splayed before him in an almost placating manner. Neither of the two said anything for a beat and Coulson allowed a hint of amusement to spark through his eyes. Barton let his jaw unhinge. "You want me to send him flowers. Seriously?"

"He's allergic to tulips," came the immediate response. The younger stared unashamedly, mouth agape before once again slouching back in his chair at the debriefing table with a noise not unlike that of a child about to throw a tantrum. He muttered something about sending Clay some bleeding hearts in Coulson's name, head lolling back on his shoulders with a rather obnoxious yawn in time with the sound of the door opening behind him and approaching footsteps—one foot fell heavier than the other, its owner limping into the room. There was an almost appreciative sigh from Phil's general direction, which the newcomer more or less returned in kind.

"Bobbi, he's yelling at me again," Clint whined, opening his eyes to the sight of his partner taking a seat beside him with a brief greeting to their superior. Having dealt with the man's unorthodox antics over the past few years and deciding that she'd rather not egg him on, Agent Barbara "Bobbi" Morse simply shook her hand and ignored him, settling herself in her chair accordingly and glancing at Barton out of the corner of her eye before rolling them and turning to address Coulson again.

"How's Agent Quartermain holding up? Is he doing any better?" She inquired, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear and absentmindedly rubbing at the bags forming under her eyes, ignoring the sting of the bruise on her temple and the flecks of grit still stuck under her fingernails.

"Oh my god," Clint muttered under his breath, effectively cutting off Phil again. "You people are acting like I killed him."

"Barton," the interrupted man said, his impassive voice betraying neither anger nor amusement.

"_What?_"

"Clint!" Bobbi hissed out of the corner of her mouth, staring at him in a wide-eyed manner that told him to shut up and hold his peace. He really should have, honestly—an emotionless Phil Coulson was just about as bad as a furious Phil Coulson. Clint shot a look at her and then at the suited man standing before them and then back again, much like a small child pleading his case with his father as to why someone else should have been charged with the destruction of the vase he hadn't broken.

"We were sparring!" he shot out, his voice not exactly cracking but rising in a defensive pitch. "Everybody spars! Why is this time so different?"

"You dislocated his shoulder," Phil deadpanned.

"On _accident!_"

They went back and forth for a bit longer and Morse resorted to propping her elbows up on the table and her head in her hands, mumbling something about being partnered with an idiot. Clint was so caught up in his one-sided argument with Coulson that he failed to catch the door opening again and it wasn't until he'd strode by that Barton noticed the appearance of the Strategic Homeland-too-long-of-a-name Director and shut his trap under the steely one-eyed glare was on the receiving end of.

"If you're done being children here, maybe the adults could talk." His tone of voice left little room for discussion. Bobbi murmured a _thank you_ to coincide with her partner's tight-lipped nod while Coulson in turn handed them each one of the manila folders that he'd earlier received from Fury and as such had been waiting for the Director's appearance before divulging their information. Clint slapped his against the table without much consideration (much to the chagrin of Coulson, who tried desperately hard to keep his glowering from being too obvious because this was serious business and he'd put quite a bit of effort into this whole thing) while Bobbi at least had the audacity to begin leafing through hers and actually take the entire meeting seriously. Fury only gave his a brief, disdainful glare, having already read it half a dozen times since that morning.

"Why are we even in here, anyway?" Barton said over Fury's actual greeting to them both, earning an eye-roll and a narrowed-eyed look. It was a fair question, in all honesty, and even his partner found her gaze briefly wandering around the rarely used meeting room, it typically being reserved for subtle meetings between the Director and some of the espionage and law-enforcement agency's higher-ups or at times serving as overflow for the medical wing if it couldn't properly handle the amount of wounded agents after an overly draining mission (even then that was a rare occurrence in itself). "I mean, no one ever really uses this room except for Phil, and even then it's to fan-girl over his Captain America trading cards."

Coulson made an indignant, sputtering noise in the back of his throat at that remark, and Morse resorted to nudging Clint's shin under the table with her foot.

"_Vintage_ trading cards, excuse me," he added with a grunt.

"Barton, if you don't cut the crap, so help me I will confiscate your god damn bow and put you on secretarial duty," Fury ground out, to which the threatened man paled while his partner alternated between a similar reaction and stifling a grin. It wasn't that doing paperwork and sitting at a desk trying to keep everyone in check was necessarily a bad thing, but rather taking an agent out of the field and forcing that work upon them was seen as nothing short of an act of cruelty. Coulson wasn't sure whether or not to feel insulted—that was, essentially, _his_ job Fury was trying to use as an ultimatum—but even if he did it didn't show.

Seeing as he saw losing possession of his prized bow for any period of time as a fate worse than death, Clint quickly decided that it was within his best interests to shut his mouth and hand the reigns of this wayward meeting to his superiors. The folder he'd been handed remained limp upon the tabletop, just outside of his reach.

"To answer your question, we're in this room because our usual one is currently being remodeled," he cast a meaningful look in Clint's direction, who feigned innocence. "Now, if you'll all kindly shut the hell up, maybe we can finally get this meeting going somewhere other than in circles. Should good?" He let that barb linger, nodding at the manila folders emblazoned with the ever-present emblem that would be forever burned into the back of Clint's eyelids until the day he died—the same ones that Bobbi had been leafing through with a furrowed brow and Clint was vainly reaching across the table for until Fury's right hand man nudged it toward him. "These are your next assignments—Agent Coulson."

Said man nodded, taking a step forward and the curious, slightly irritable looks he was receiving in stride. "Thank you, sir. Now we understand that you've both just gotten back from Manitoba and that you're tired, but you are two of our best operatives and as such we're sending you out again a bit sooner than planned." He paused long enough to incline his head toward the papers the agents were skimming over in order to brief themselves on their upcoming, short-notice mission. Fury nodded his consent in time with the frowns marring his agents' features as Coulson took a step back toward the wall, turning to the array of screens and the electronic layout behind the two standing men and hesitating once more. "It has come to our attention that in light of recent events in the eastern hemisphere a few red flags have been raised and are thus cause for concern. While these may not be threats of a global level at any immediate point in time, there is reason to believe that things could quickly escalate if nothing is done soon."

With the press of a button the slowly rotating agency logo dissolved into a blank screen that Coulson suddenly brought to life, plastering it with a series of images of an older, worn-out looking man that neither of the other operatives knew. As such, the man retrieved his own copy of the dossier from where he'd stuck it into his armpit, deftly flipping it open and extracting the first page as Barton and Morse did the same.

"Anton Vanko, believed to be a Soviet sympathizer and deported at the turn of the Cold War by Howard Stark, may not have done much in the past twelve months aside from sit in his Siberian hovel and drink, but all the same is due for his yearly check-up in order to ensure that he doesn't begin building a nuclear bomb and starting another world war." He paused for a second, frowning at the technology and its lag before he successfully managed to pull up a Siberian newspaper headline. "Vanko's son Ivan may also very well require watch once he's been freed from prison again; for the time being he's currently living under the thumbs of a few of our Russian correspondents. And by '_very well require watch'_ we mean he's currently listed as a hazard and potential threat of undetermined magnitude. Food for thought."

Coulson then relinquished his command of the briefing and stepped back, turning back to the screens once more with a short glare before focusing on the next few sheets of paper he was leafing though. The Director waited until Barton and Morse had both finished up their readings on the Russian physicist before addressing the remainder of their folders.

Clint regarded the page he was looking at curiously. He glanced up to meet the one-eyed gaze before the latter twisted toward the images Coulson had been pulling up, pointing out a dimly-colored group of older men gather together, one of them being circled loosely in red. If he had to, Clint wanted to date it sometime around the early 1970's, if not a few years earlier because doing so made him feel intelligent.

"As for the second half of your assignment: Ivan Petrovich has been eluding custody for the past two decades and, quite frankly, it's pissing me off." A few images of an older man and his cohorts—captioned as _Petrovich and Alexei Shostakov_ and a few key words such as _'Red Room_,' _Iron Axis _and something called_ Department X_—splayed themselves across the screens under Coulson's guidance. "To this day Petrovich remains in-charge of an old KGB program with its focus on training and conditioning its own brand of combatants. This essential _breeding_ was much more prominent during the sixties and early seventies and the rise of Communism in eastern Europe but has begun cropping up again in recent years." A picture of a solemn looking young girls standing at attention was enlarged and Morse suppressed a shiver. Barton narrowed his eyes intently as Fury continued speaking. "From an exceedingly young age these women in this program are mentally and physically conditioned to follow orders and go in for the the kill, all head and no heart with no questions asked. As I said, this practice was thought to have died down a bit until just a few months ago when Ambassador Drakov's daughter was found dead three days after she initially went missing."

Clint opened his mouth to make some comment as to what this whole lecture had to do with anything when he suddenly found himself openly staring at the third image of these KGB assassins that Coulson had conjured up, stiffening at the sight of piercing blue eyes meeting his own, flakes of snow dotting her bright hair and the gash across her cheek. Albeit a bit shaky, the picture focused on her face from a short distance and made for a decent enough reference to work with when it came time to doing whatever it was that Fury wanted them to do. Judging from the narrowing of those eyes Barton had the clear impression that this had been her photographer's last shot. Of course, aside from how deadly this woman obviously was, Clint had to admit that she did have a number of attractive qualities—not including the smoking gun in her hand. The only betrayal of Bobbi's otherwise professionally indifferent response to her partner's uninhibited gawking was a short expulsion of air from her nose.

"Natalia Romanova," Fury began narrating, gesturing to the woman with fiery hair serving as a stark contrast to the snow surrounding her. "Petrovich's most prized and sought after prodigy. This woman has seen more red than you've seen daylight with no indication of stopping anytime soon. While we're not entirely certain if she operates as murder-for-fire or does the bidding of her 'masters' or whatever—," He was sure to add in some air-quotes. "She does not appear to question orders nor have any problem with killing whomever her superiors tell her to, guilty or not. As far as we know, she could kill simply for the hell of it; we don't know. I'll admit that we ourselves may not have the cleanest jobs in the world, but I have little respect for anyone—man or woman—who's going to knowingly kill off a bunch of innocent lives just to complete a set task."

Fury paused just long enough to try to unclench his jaw and to press a button on the board beside him, successfully calling up a rather unsettling series of name upon name upon name, some written in characters even Bobbi didn't recognize. "We've managed to compile a list of each of her marks during her career as one of Petrovich's lackeys." Clint blanched as the woman beside him gently pressed her hand to her mouth and tried not to focus too hard on the sheer _volume_ of names. "These are only the ones that we're aware of. All are dead save for one—"

"That's . . . not so bad," Barton whispered in a poor attempt to lighten the mood. He leaned further back in his chair as the Director turned to him.

"—and they are currently on life support with odds that are definitely _not_ in their favor."

"That's . . . not so good." Coulson gave a tight shake of his head at his comrade's remark and the latter gave the inside of his cheek a good gnawing on. Fury quirked an eyebrow as if to say _is it now_, but said nothing more on the matter and turned his attention back to the discussion at hand.

"Vanko and the Russian Stark Junior counterpart currently inhabit Volstok area of Russia," he supplied, gesturing with a wide sweeping motion of his arm toward the console behind him where his comrade had queued up a map of the expansive country, quickly scrolling in on what Clint and Bobbi read as the region of _Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia._

Fury continued from there, turning his gaze to address the blonde. "Morse, you'll be heading up to Pevek to go gather what Intel you can on the Vanko family and get back to us with any updates—preferably not just notes on their drinking habits, if you don't mind. Barton'll be in the southwest region, hunting down Romanova in Volgograd." The map panned westward in time with his orders. "One of our aforementioned Russian operatives last spotted her a few days ago. We haven't heard from him since and this may very well be one of our only shots at getting her."

The two exchanged a look, Bobbi looking none too thrilled with the notion that she was the one being shipped off solo to Siberia while Clint got to go wander around a city on the other side of the continent looking for an assassin that presumably wouldn't think twice about snapping his neck. In turn, Clint gently nudged her knee under the table with his own as a means of conveying something undefined and also serving to remind her of how sore her leg still was from their Canadian run-in and how it wouldn't do well to try to chase down this Romanova woman by limping after her full-tilt. Granted, they were only looking out for her well-being, but that didn't soften the blow to her dignity any more so. She shifted her head in a barely perceivable nod as Coulson spoke again.

"Agent Morse, you'll also be piloting one of the quinjets, depositing Barton in Volgograd before heading up north. As Director Fury stated, you will be in charge of gathering information on the Vanko's, after which you will regroup with Agent Barton. There will be a rendezvous point in Volzhksy,—" he pointed to the ever-present map of the Russian Federation. "—where an extraction team will meet up with you if need be, after you've completed your tasks."

Bobbi had clearly found her center and as such sat up just a bit straighter, the weary exhaustion in her irises replaced by strict determination and nothing but business.

"What exactly do you want us to do, sir?"

There was a pause—not quite a gentle quiet in the room—as Fury turned to face both of them and Coulson closed his folder, his forehead wrinkled by a frown. There was a simmering anger in the Director's one good eye and both that and his tone left no room for further discussion or failure.

"I want you to find her, and I want you to take her _out._"

Clint's jaw clenched into a frown as he too shifted in his seat, stowing his papers back into their folder and meeting the hardened gaze of Coulson, who had thus far remained where he was, stationed at the console where he'd been charged with the task of their visual briefing. The man had a rather resigned look to him, clearly not overly pleased with the fact that they were sending out both Barton and Morse so soon after their return from their last mission. The latter was favoring her right leg while the former spotted some bruised knuckles and a welt forming on his shoulder, having simply grinned and mentioned something about a moose having a bad day.

"When do we leave?"

The question was met with not so much a sigh as a quiet acceptance. Fury spoke, not Coulson.

"Oh-six-hundred. You'll have enough time to pack your things and a get a bit of R&R beforehand; take a shower, take a nap, get the dirt out from under your fingernails and finish your debriefing paperwork from the Manitoba assignment." The two nodded their consent, beginning to gather their things as they felt the meeting approach its close and Barton paused just long enough for the math in his head to click.

"Wait, six-hundred?"

"Six in the morning," Bobbi whispered out of the corner of her mouth in response to his furrowed brow.

"I know that," he shot back before addressing the Director again. "But it's barely eleven—uh, twenty-one-hundred now. That gives us barely any time to get anything done before we leave."

Fury, seeing right through one of his chief operatives and his distress over having to be conscious any longer than he had to, simply deadpanned back, "Sleep on the way there."

Barton pulled something along the lines of a pout, causing a complete shift in the mood of the briefing back to the nonsensical atmosphere he'd been causing before learning about killers and their red ledgers. Morse and Coulson merely shared a look between themselves as Clint tried and failed to get Fury to see his side of things. Still perturbed mostly by the fact that he'd only just gotten back from Canada and was being shipped out to Russia much sooner than he cared for, Barton finally gave up attempts at getting his superior to reschedule and instead reverted to muttering about something or other to himself before climbing to his feet, Morse doing the same.

There were a few moments of silence as the four of them stood around, two swaying on their feet and another remaining where he'd been standing, calmly watching the others and the three of them not knowing how to proceed next.

"You're dismissed, you know," the Director finally said, having turned his attention to his dossier and generally expecting that his company would have realized that they'd been free to leave if they so chose to about five minutes ago.

With a firm nod the tired operatives bid their ringleaders a brief farewell, promising to regroup sometime around five in the morning, preferably after one had been unconscious for more than an hour and the other had managed to finally scrub away the grime caked onto the back of her neck. Having made it to the doorway in a somewhat unnerving silence, Barton couldn't help mutter something with snark, directed at the men behind him as he crossed over the threshold.

"Coulson's only mad because he wanted us to go ice-fishing for Captain America instead."

"Clint-shut _up_," As amused as she was, Bobbi only gave his shoulder a light shove in the general direction of his Helicarrier lodgings, shooting an apologetic smirk at both Coulson and Fury both they both wandered down the corridor, murmuring to one another in low voices, heads bent together.

Fury gave the empty doorway a quizzical study, then swiveling toward Phil and his resulting stammering.

"I—I don't, sir, please," he stuttered, trying to keep his features from temporarily dyeing themselves pink and maintaining what dignity he had that Clint hadn't already taken it upon himself to destroy. The other man merely chuckled in amusement, waving away the weakened defense that had devolved into incoherent, half-formed statements, telling him to save his breath and not worry too much about it. Cut off not for the first time that hour, Coulson stopped speaking a nodded, collecting his things with a swift, "Thank you, sir."

"He's not wrong, you know."

Phil Coulson just smirked sheepishly as he exited the room, quietly humming _Star Spangled Man_ to himself.

Fury chuckled lowly, once more turning to one of the last pages in his folder and the way in which he suddenly lost all humor was almost tangible when his gaze fell upon the grainy image of the woman he was sending Barton in to kill, her face turned away as if she were offended and her entire stance appeared weary, as if she were glancing over her shoulder for fear of being followed. Fury frowned as he studied the image, it having been taken just the other day and quickly sent to him via that Russian man whose name for the life of him he could not pronounce without sounding like he was choking on his own tongue.

There was a brief feeling of _something_ that shot through him—or perhaps that was just the sensation of his foot going numb—and while he did not feel guilt exactly, the more he studied the photograph, the more the skin around his eyes tightened as he glowered at the profile that was Natalia Romanova, a woman whose hands were stained with red.

"Don't screw this up, Barton."


End file.
